Summertime Blues

(Released to the web July 17, 2007)

There ain't no cure for the summertime blues, according to the old song, and maybe that is true.  The summer break can be a time, though, when children have an opportunity to engage in self-directed free play and to explore areas of life that time won't allow during the school year.  Still, parents worry that  they should be doing more than allowing for unrestricted time.

Recreation programs and camps are popular with Readington parents, as are private tutoring sessions with teachers to help students with problem areas.  Museums and parks are another common pursuit.  Yet, there are other means of engaging sons and daughters in meaningful learning without coming down too hard.

Summer is a great time to start a family reading schedule.  Older children can still benefit from reading aloud and, with wise choices of material, it won't seem silly to them.  Pick a book that would be a stretch for your child to read alone and sit down each night to read a chapter aloud.  This is a great chance to expose your kids to classics and even adult books that they would otherwise struggle to understand or that contain vocabulary that they would otherwise stumble over.  It also makes for good rainy-day activity.

A recent book that can really help dads and sons connect is The Dangerous Book For Boys.  It contains all sorts of activities guaranteed to appeal to the testosterone set.  Nowhere else can you learn to make a bow and arrow, read Shakespeare, and discover the finer points of dealing with girls all within the same cover.

Many parents are very concerned about the Everyday Math program in Readington and wonder if their children are failing to master key skills as they move forward.  Rather than private tutoring, parents can consider supplementing at home for an hour or so a week just to shore up skills and promote mastery.  An inexpensive yet effective program that parents can purchase is based on Singapore Math.  The US distributor for the program sells workbooks and enrichment materials perfect for short lessons at home that won't become a downer for kids during the summer.

How about financial literacy?  Do your kids understand how money works or how to invest?  There are lots of web resources for parents who want to teach their kids about finance.  A fun means of introducing your kids to the world of investing is to participate in a virtual stock market game.  After explaining the basics, you can start a virtual game with your kids where they are given an amount of money to invest in the stocks of their choice.  Virtual stock market websites allow you to set up the rules of the game and to buy and sell real stocks (with fake money) just as you would with a real brokerage account.  Kids can learn the mechanics of the process, but also how to value an organization and how to coordinate personal goals with market realities.  It can make for an interesting summer activity and a critical learning opportunity with no pressure.

Pushing formal activities is the kiss of death when it comes to summertime motivation.  Better to let your kids find their own interests than to inundate them with new demands.  Resist the temptation to help them fill every minute of the day, otherwise they will not learn themselves how to cope with discretionary time. Of course, that doesn't mean allowing hours of television as the sun winds across the sky.  A limited schedule of organized learning is enough to help your kids stretch a little bit over the summer without cramping their style.